THUNDER BAY -- The city has exercised its legally-granted access to the James Street Swing Bridge.
City-contracted engineers and representatives of Fort William First Nation conducted a two-hour inspection of the CN Rail-owned bridge on July 7, nearly three years after a blaze on the structure started a legal firefight over responsibility for its maintenance.
The inspection will produce a report for city administration, which will be made public at a yet-to-be-announced City Council meeting.
“The bridge is important to the city of Thunder Bay, to the Fort William First Nation and of course, to the people in surrounding areas of our communities,” said Thunder Bay city manager Norm Gale.
“A successful resolution will see the bridge opened to traffic again.”
In January, a Superior Court justice ruled against CN Rail's refusal to allow the City of Thunder Bay access to the site.
The company submitted an affidavit in which its engineers claimed the bridge’s weak structure justified its closure to traffic and that damage the bridge incurred from the October 2013 fire was limited.
Thunder Bay was granted the right to conduct an independent engineering study of its own to confirm or contest those assertions.
Although the city and the company have since reached terms on the conditions of bridge access, those terms have not been made public.
The study will impact the ongoing legal battle both CN and Thunder Bay filed in February 2015 within days of each other, each claiming the other bore responsibility for the future of vehicle traffic on the bridge.
The city continues to assert the rail company is responsible to uphold a six-paragraph agreement signed in 1906, in which the then-owner Grand Trunk Railroad committed to “maintain the bridge in perpetuity.”
“The bridge is owned by CN and their requirement is to maintain it in perpetuity and we’re pursuing it,” Gale said.
